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The activities of Worship Community are designed to cater to a growing level of commitment to the Body of Christ. As a result, the schedule for various activities is designed to answer to the various levels of commitment. For example, the lowest level of commitment will only be to the Small Group Community group. With increased commitment, the Worship Celebration is added, and with a commitment to serve comes the full Sunday morning schedule. Then, as the desire for discipleship and outreach increases, the evening activities will begin to be added. With the exception of occasional short-term commitments, only leaders and those with a high level of commitment to the body of Christ will be expected to be regularly involved in ongoing midweek activities. This not only answers to the specific aspect of commitment, but also encourages all of the members of WC to be involved in the local community throughout the rest of the week.
Small-Group Community
The Small-Group Community time was also explained in
Plan View. As previously stated, this time will often have a theme
throughout the WC, but will be age-graded. In contrast to Living
Worship Training, Small-Group Community will be focussed on
fellowship, outreach, and involvement around a basic topical Bible study.
Morning Worship Celebration
The morning Worship Celebration will be the primary worship time for Worship
Community. The basic philosophy of corporate worship is explained in the Worship section of the 9 Purposes and in Plan View. The morning celebration will be
centered around this philosophy, with expressive worship in various forms
accompanied by biblical preaching.
Corporate Prayer
Without prayer, Worship Community will lack the power of God and intimacy
with God--the Source of our purpose. Without a corporate time for the believers
to gather together and seek God's face together, consistent unity will be a
distant dream. Great men of God have often been quoted as rising early in the
morning to meet with God. Worship Community will begin its primary day of
concentrated ministry by meeting together to seek God's face for the activities
of the day, and to pray for His anointing on everything that takes place. By
inserting corporate prayer into the setup time, greater opportunities for
involvement and team-building result.
Living Worship Training
This time will be the primary in-depth discipleship-oriented Bible-study element
of Worship Community. Built around the basic philosophy of ongoing
training in the FAITH Sunday School Evangelism Strategy, each group will be
divided by level of discipleship, and will center on equipping WC members
to overflow the elements of their Christian faith into their everyday lives, and
ultimately have an impact on the community around them.
Prior to permanent facilities, these groups will meet in the homes of WC members. These classes will not be divided by age, but of similar spiritual development (based on level of training in the LWT series). This form of group dynamic gives WC members a significant chance to interact with members of other ages.
Community Touchpoint
This will be the primary visitation time of Worship Community. This time
was chosen carefully, as it does not directly interfere with the average family's
dinner time, but is close enough that it can be used as a dinner time. This
means that some Touchpoint teams can set up dinners with potential Worship
Community members in order to build relationships with them and integrate
them into the larger group. However, for Touchpoint teams that do not have
prospects to meet with, the time is appropriate for them to be out in the
community sharing their faith and establishing relationships with people who
might not otherwise be aware of Worship Community.
Evening Worship Celebration
This short worship service focusses more on the celebration aspect of worship.
Combining the traditional evening worship time with the usual "celebration time"
at the close of evangelistic visitation, this will be an extremely informal
praise and worship time. Prior to permanent facilities, this time will be
located at various public locations around the community to create visibility and
touch lives that would not ordinarily come to a worship service. As a result,
the evening Worship Celebration will be accoustic, with minimal setup, and will
focus on the results of the preceding Touchpoint time. The evening Worship
Celebration will probably not have a sermon per se, but will undoubtably have a
devotional element related to the activities of the day, or to other current
events.
Those familiar with the dynamics of college ministry are probably familiar with the dynamics of informal, acoustic worship. It is during these times that some of the deepest relationships are built within the community of believers. It is also in these times that many unbelievers really begin to see the genuine love Christians have for their Lord and Savior. It is our belief that this is the dynamic in which many of the Negro spirituals developed. It is also our belief that this is a dynamic worth nurturing, as it is a form of Christian worship that can be carried to virtually any context, even in the midst of persecution.
PrayerPoints
Modeled after the Lighthouse Movement,
PrayerPoints are another possible small group opportunity to get
people involved in Worship Community. PrayerPoints can be developed on
two planes. First, when the fact that many people in our culture commute away
from the local community to work each day, PrayerPoints can become a weekly time
for people to gather together at their place of business to pray and reach out to
coworkers by demonstrating genuine care and concern. Second, PrayerPoints can
become in-home prayer groups, creating spiritual hotspots throughout the local
community that can become bridgepoints of care and concern for those in the local
neighborhoods. Both PrayerPoint planes can be effectively used to build
relationships with people that can open doors for sharing the Gospel.
Worship Team
At Worship Community, the worship team is more than the pastor and it is
more than the musicians. The worship team consists of the pastor, musicians,
drama, sound technicians, lighting technicians, multimedia operators, and anyone
else who would be significantly involved in a worship service on any given
Sunday. As a result, each of these people would have a responsibility to be at
the worship practice to take place during the week. While some of the
individuals may have to spend more time at such a practice, all people involved
must be on the same page before Sunday arrives in order to maximize unity,
consistency, flow, and all other aspects that would come under the title of
"excellency."
Small Group Community Leadership
In order to ensure the success of the Small Group as the primary outreach and
assimilation tool of Worship Community, several levels of leadership must
be developed within the Small Group structure. These levels of leadership will
inherently fail without consistent training, vision-casting, and collaboration.
As a result, the various levels of leadership withing the Small Group Community
structure would be expected to be a part of leadership meetings at some point
during midweek.
Church Planting and Missions
The heart of Worship Community is the expansion of the church. Worship
Community is dedicated to planting churches in the surrounding area,
throughout the Northeast United States, across the nation, and around the world.
The vision for Worship Community is to train church planters to plant
churches in their particular cultural context in such a way that more churches
can be planted--whether the context be an American suburban community, an inner-
city neighborhood, or a village in a foreign land. The Great Commission calls us
to reach our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. This is not a
step process, but a simultaneous event. We must go.
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The WC model is an ongoing process and will be under development for several years. Check back often to see the growing vision and detailed plans for how the vision will be carried out.